Tarique Rahman, co-convener of Bangladesh Gono Odhikar Parishad and adviser to Nurul Haque Nur, launched a vehement attack against the Hindu community, claiming that the scriptures of the Hindu faith are pornographic and don’t provide any moral teaching.
Notably, Nurul Haque Nur, backed by the Islamist organisation Jamaat-e-Islami, has been leading the charge in the Opposition’s effort to overthrow the Bangladesh Government without participating in the election. The General elections are to be held in Bangladesh in 2024.
In Facebook live, Tarique Rahman spewed venom against the Hindu community. “Scriptures of the Hindu religion do not offer any moral teaching — all the religious scriptures are porn scripts,” he said.
“Yes, I have indulged in a conspiracy with foreign intelligence agencies, including Mossad. In my bid to unseat the Government, I held a meeting with a Mossad agent, Mendi N Safadi to hatch a conspiracy to unseat Sheikh Hasian’s Government,” he said.
The video has gone viral on social media platforms and is also being widely shared; the hateful speech against Hindus has received a lot of condemnation. Many users are drawing parallels between it and a similar appeal by Jamaat officials to wipe out Hindus in their attempt to stop the creation of this nation from Pakistan in 1971.
Nurul Haque Nur plans is to challenge Bangladesh’s current Sheikh Hasina-led Government in the 2024 elections and to gain power without contesting elections. He openly stressed ‘backdoor political manipulations’ as a way to achieve power.
According to the reports that Facebook Live was from Saudi Arabia, Nurul Haque Nur also attacked the free press by calling journalists as slaves. He also warned the journalists not to question his mission.
The attacks against Hindus are nothing new—around 154 people in 2022 were brutally killed belonging to the minority community.
According to Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance, 39 women from the minority community were raped (27 of them were gang-raped).
In Bangladesh, Hindus now comprise 8.5 per cent of the total population. The census numbers have shown a reduction in the Hindu population over the past five decades.
According to estimates by a Deutsche Welle report in October 2021 citing Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), a Bangladeshi human rights organisation, there have been over 3,600 attacks in Bangladesh targeting Hindus since 2013.
The study found the attacks against Hindus over the eight years include cases of vandalism and arson targeting over 550 houses, 440 shops and businesses. More than 1,670 cases of vandalism on Hindu temples, idols, and places of worship were also reported during the same period.
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